Uncle Darnell had been home for a few weeks, but he still woke up in the middle of the night. I’d hear the floorboards creak under his footsteps but I’d pretend to be asleep. From my window I’d watch him leave out the front door and walk down Herkimer Street. Pa told Big Ma Uncle D spent a lot of time in Fulton Park with the other soldiers who were home from Vietnam. Then I wouldn’t see him until we came in from school and he’d be laid out on his bed in the parlor room where Cecile slept when my father and uncle first took her in.
We got home from school and found Uncle Darnell buttoning his shirt, getting ready to go out. He said he was going to the candy store around the corner and we asked if we could go with him. He said, “Drop your books and come on.” Uncle Darnell was always easy that way.
“Put on your army clothes,” Vonetta said. “So we can show everybody.”
Uncle Darnell almost grinned, but he didn’t give his all-out dimpled grin. “Show ’em what, Net-Net?”
Without missing a beat Vonetta said, “That you been to Vietnam.”
Fern added, “Fighting the war.”
He made a low hum. “They know,” he said. “’Sides. Better to show ’em I’m back home, right?”
“Right on,” Vonetta said. Then Fern had to say it too.
Uncle Darnell wore what he called his “civvies.” His regular clothes. We were so glad to have him home and just walk with him. We also knew he’d buy us candy or take us down to the record shop so we could moon over the Jackson Five album. We’d be with our uncle, moon over the Jackson Five, and get candy without spending money that could go toward our Madison Square Garden savings.
We passed by Friendship Baptist without Uncle Darnell making mention of the Arabian Knight or his sword, plastered into the yellow brick face of the church. The pastor said the church had been built by an Arabian Order of Shriners decades before Friendship Baptist made it its spiritual home. Uncle Darnell used to tell us stories about the Arabian Knight and how he died defending this block from urban decay and that his face had been immortalized in plaster to keep watch over Herkimer Street. Vonetta, Fern, and I were so giddy about candy and maybe strolling over to the record shop that we hadn’t noticed that our uncle didn’t say what he always said when we walked by the Arabian Knight: “He’s got his mystic eye on us.”
Instead, we called out to anyone on their stoop or in the street, “Our uncle is back from Vietnam.” Mrs. Allen from Friendship Baptist was the first person we called out to. She said, “Bet you’re glad you don’t have to go back.”
Uncle Darnell said, “Don’t you know it.” He sounded old, like Pa. Not young like someone out of high school for a year and three months. The men mostly shook his hand and thanked him for doing his duty. But one man said, “I wouldn’t go to no foreign country and shoot up poor people.” Vonetta got mad and said, “My uncle did not go to Vietnam and shoot up poor people.” Fern said, “He shot the enemy.” I didn’t say anything. I listened to what the newscasters said about the soldiers harming civilians and doing worse. But I also knew my uncle didn’t do any of those things while he was in Vietnam. I just couldn’t open my mouth.
“Come on, y’all,” Uncle Darnell told us. “Peace, man,” he said to the guy who wouldn’t even look at him. Peace, man.
One day when he was in Vietnam, I’d gotten a letter from him that said:
Delphine,
Everything’s all right.
Everything’s out of sight.
Love you love you
Uncle D
His crazy, loopy handwriting swam around that yellow, lined paper. I showed the letter to Pa and Big Ma.
Pa said, “That boy’s trying to sing you a Stevie Wonder tune in a letter.” And he laughed a big, whopping laugh, which Papa didn’t hardly do.
I figured Pa was right. Uncle D was writing me a letter and hearing a familiar song in his mind. Maybe the bombing and shooting had started and he had to write fast. That was why his writing was nothing like the writing on his other letters. Uncle Darnell made his letters tall and lean slightly to the right, like I did. Then I remembered. He taught me how to handwrite the alphabet before I went to school.
The air was a little crisp, and Uncle Darnell’s nose started to run, so he wiped it on his sleeve. He had written to me about how it rained off and on in Vietnam, but Vietnam rain couldn’t top Brooklyn chill in early October. Uncle D never mentioned getting sick over there, but now he always kept a cold.
We stepped out into Bedford Avenue, and Fern, who hadn’t forgotten, looked up at the armory and cried, “Say it, Uncle Darnell. Say it!” She might have walked past the Arabian Knight but she hadn’t forgotten about the princess.
He looked around like he was lost in thought. Then he came back to us and said, “Huh?” like he didn’t remember we were on the corner and could see the armory and how its round towers rose into the sky like the Magic Kingdom. It was the storybook place at Bedford and Atlantic, where the princess had been calling out to be rescued since Fern was about four or five.
When he said, “Huh?” Fern started it off to help him remember. “Who will save the princess locked in the red castle?”
Vonetta said, “That’s for babies, baby.”
Fern said, “Take that back, Vonetta.”
The sun was in Uncle Darnell’s eyes. He blinked a few times. “I forgot how it went,” he said.
“You say, ‘I hear a voice,’ then I say, ‘The princess is crying. The princess is crying.’ Then you say, ‘Who will save the princess in the red castle?’ Then I say, ‘We will save the princess in the red castle.’ Then we charge to her rescue.”
“Right, right,” Uncle said, but I doubted he really remembered. Or maybe his mind was somewhere else.